Yes, I know your baristas have told you that all of Starbucks’ coffee is fair trade.
No, Starbucks’ coffee is not all fair trade.
When people think fair trade, they think fair compensation for farmers. Does Starbucks fairly compensate farmers? They do, for some of their coffee — like the fair trade certified Cafe Estima — but NOT for a lot of it.
Like I said before, Starbucks buys a lot of its coffee beans through middlemen. And according to their website, 41% of those transactions have no transparancy clause — Meaning Starbucks has NO IDEA what the farmers are being paid. They may pay $1.20 for the coffee to the middlemen, but that’s no guarantee that the farmer will get their fair share of it.
Yet Starbucks insists on training their baristas with the mantra that ALL of Starbucks’ coffee is fair trade.
Baristas are starting to find out otherwise. Read what skrap says about this: “i for one have had a tough time sorting out fact from fiction in this vein since being hired in july. as claireh notes, we are trained to believe (not to lie to customers — trained to truly *believe*) that all of our coffee is organic & fair trade though it may not be certified as such. which simply isn’t entirely true & i’m not sure what to do with that.”
And some are getting a lil peeved about it. claireh says: “i do feel sort of betrayed by starbucks. i was traiend to tell customers that even our non-certified coffees are pretty much fair trade. “it just costs a lot and takes a lot of time to actually certify a farm, so they aren’t certified yet”. but yeah. that is bullcrap and i think they would get more respect if they just told us the truth so we weren’t spreading misinformation.”
Why is Starbucks telling its baristas to lie unknowingly?
Cuz from what I’ve heard, deliberately lying can get public corporations into deep shit.
Check out what’s already happening with Nestle’s claims at fair trade, just a couple months after launching their first fair trade certified product. Nestle’s already been reported to the UK Advertising Standards Authority “for a misleading and dishonest advertisement about its Fairtrade Partners’ Blend coffee and wider involvement in the coffee industry.” Why? Baby Milk Action, the group that reported Nestle, basically says the corp’s portrayal of its involvement in coffee in El Salvador, and in the coffee industry more generally, is dishonest and misleading.
Yes, misleading’s horrid. I’m no fan of Nestle.
But isn’t outright lying worse? I mean, Nestle has in no means claimed here that all their coffee’s fair trade, say (See the ad here). Starbucks — despite the fact that they internally know otherwise — has made that easily-disprovable claim.
No, I’m not saying Starbucks is worse than Nestle. You’d have to try pretty damn hard to do worse than Nestle. Like I say often, Starbucks really DOES do a lot of nice things for the environment, its employees, and some of the farmers who grow their coffee. I mean, I’m not even complaining at this point about that 41% of contracts without transparancy clauses. It does seem like Starbucks may slowly be moving along the right path.
So why not just stick to the truth and let it stand on its own? Why not say, “We’re not all fair trade, but we’re working to get there — Here’s the progress we’ve made so far.”
Cuz lying only pisses off both employees and customers, once they find out they’ve been duped. And false advertising can also make really, really shitty things happen. You know, like lawsuits.
Interesting post but I think we need more investigation.
I will work with Starbucks media relations to answer our
questions. Post you questions for them on the projectvillage.org
website… lets get a bunch of questions together as a team.
Comment by Matthew — December 13, 2005 @ 7:05 pm
I agree..Starbucks should just be fair about their advertisement because customers will emphatize actually that they’re trying to hold on and to get to their promises and their mission. I’m reading your blog regularly and being informed a lot of stuffs Starbucks…Thanks Siel. Excellent work..keep it up :-)
Comment by Maya — December 13, 2005 @ 11:44 pm
Hey Siel
Good post…
Personally I think Starbucks using the term ‘fairly traded’ is misleading at best.
Worst case scenario is that they are using it on purpose to pass off ‘fairly traded’ as Fairtrade and also to weaken a certification process they cannot control ie Fairtrade, as opposed to their own in-house ‘fairly traded’ certification which they commission themselves.
Of course I could not for a minute believe they would do something like that.
My recent post highlighted the fact that a UK Barista told me that Fair Trade coffee was:
‘something to do with Fairly Traded African coffee’
It just breeds so much confusion. Great post.
Namaste
Al
Comment by City Hippy — December 14, 2005 @ 8:30 am
Hi Siel: Of course, Nestle’s sins go back decades, to the times they were trying to foist malnourishing and tainted infant formular on third world mothers. Their transgressions are legend. BTW, like the new photo on your bio page. Cheers, Ian
Comment by Ian — December 14, 2005 @ 9:56 am
Thanks Ian! I think I look happier in this one. Drunker, but happier.
Maya — Congrats on the loan! Looking forward to seeing the pics as the store gets going –
CH — Totally agree. And what’s worse is that the baristas who are ALREADY aware of FT are told Starbucks just hearts FT all the way…
Comment by Siel — December 15, 2005 @ 4:12 pm
ummm.
No they don’t. I’ve been through the training. They are quite clear that only a select blend of beans are fair trade certified.
Comment by ~o — December 17, 2005 @ 9:24 am
Hey ~o. I’m not saying baristas are told all Starbucks coffee is fair trade CERTIFIED, I’m saying they’re told that most of it is not certified, but is “pretty much fair trade” — as seen in the barista quotes above and by challenger experiences all over the world.
Comment by Siel — December 17, 2005 @ 12:52 pm
with the huge of amount of bad will behind the nestle name one would have hoped they would behave better but alas not much signs of improvements there.
one a different note: while nestle still is not a big name on corn flakes and mil products in sweden they absolutely dominate corn flakes (and choc flakes) and condensed milk in portugal.
when the fair trade label and system still is not well known to everyone companies that in part make or sell fair trade products will claim that the company is fair.
maybe the label itself should emphasize that it is the product (and its production) that goes under a fair trade certified project and not the company itself.
Comment by Johan — March 10, 2006 @ 8:40 am
I actually am largely in charge of training at my store and any argument that baristas are trained that way is wrong and to imply that Baristas can’t distinguish what they are being taught is rather belittling to me and many of my friends. Starbucks does not in any of its training materials state or imply that many of its uncertified coffees are grown and bought to FT standards. What they are guilty of is promoting C.A.F.E. practices in such a way that it appears to put FT to shame. When in reality that is far from true. Baristas are taught that Fair Trade certification standards are too time consuming and hinder farmers that are fair trade from becoming fair trade and that C.A.F.E practices is their solution to this “problem”. Which isn’t true or admirable. Just because you can walk into a starbucks and find a barista that doesn’t know what they are talking about doesn’t mean you should write an article about it presenting it as factual evidence. Starbucks is not the humanitarian or environmentalist it claims to be but then again you aren’t writing true articles either.
Comment by David — December 16, 2006 @ 9:23 pm
Hey David — It seems we agree on much more than we disagree on. Clearly, we both think that fair trade is better than CAFE practices!
It seems that what you most dislike is what you see as my assertion that many Starbucks baristas are taught the Starbucks line (CAFE rocks while fair trade does not) — and buy it wholesale. However, it also seems that you agree that many baristas DO buy Starbucks’ line totally. It’s certainly what I’ve run into in my experience.
I guess I’m a little confused as to what you’re saying. I wrote that I talked to a lot of Starbucks baristas, who thought that CAFE was way better than fair trade — and wrote a post reporting that. You feel that wasn’t fair — but I’m really not sure why. I think it’s important that people know that Starbucks has been very successful in convincing many of its employees that CAFE is best — and that many baristas haven’t bothered to research whether or not that’s true.
Certainly, you don’t fall into that category. Yet it seems we both agree that many do –
Comment by Siel — December 17, 2006 @ 7:46 pm
I am a Starbucks partner and absolutely support making a french press for anyone who wants a special coffee. Right now, cafe’ Estima and (if I remember right) our Pike Place is fair trade. (I’ll get back with you on that).
So ask away. They should give you a grande coffee for a grande price even if it is pressed!!
Comment by Shane Franklin — April 26, 2008 @ 7:53 pm